Thursday, June 26, 2014

(saustexmedia.com) The secret to putting out a good label sampler compilation is a mysterious puzzle few have solved, but Saustex somehow stumbled upon the key to this complicated lock: have a good label roster! Copper Gamins, Hickoids, A Pony Named Olga, Churchwood, Pinanta Protest and the others don't all sound alike, but all make sense, for various reasons, destroying the stages of forward thinking Texas honky-tonks. And that is exactly how this honky likes getting tonked!

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

(MorePower Tapes) Ahhhh! Hardcore that hit me hard in my core and scared me more
than the old man in Phantasm (and
that dude scared the piss out of me. And unlike these furious fellas state in
their 21 second mainfesto “Piss Test,” I was
pissing in a cup).

(MorePower Tapes) If you want to argue that lo-fi/no-fi recording production values and
glam rock are two terms that should never go together I’m willing to listen. But
then I will play you this filthy audio mess that is also a functional suite of
strut anthems, and I shall rest my (cassette) case.

(Rijapov Records) Cute animals drawn on the front cover, cute white
people photographed on the back cover --- I’m not sure which one is supposed to
be the band, as these bouncy, happy, rockin’, sugar high, cotton candy bubblegum
ditties sure sound like they are being performed by cartoon characters. Makes
Shonen Knife sound like Slayer!

(Almost Ready) Based on their
amazing “Day at the Beach” single last year, I dubbed these cats beautifully off kilter 60s-ish surf/harmony/punk/psyche/partial eclipse
sunshine rockers. While that brainblowing A-side is included, the rest of this
album doesn’t mimic that tune, distancing this (I assume by their name) East
Coast band from the Bay Area/Burger-fed surf punk pop geniuses taking over the
world for the last few years. Instead we get some genuine grit and heavy gravel
floating in the lemonade, and like all indigestible ingested matter, I for one I
love the way it feels going down and coming out!

(King of Spades) The
greatest argument ever for casting outer space psychedelic noisemeister Helios
Creed as a madman now exists: not releasing the "Half Machine" tracks upon completion 33
years ago was fucking crazy! Creed and Damon Edge made otherworldly, urgent
noise with underlying grooves and hooks that at their best were more organic,
soulful, and frightening than any of the Chicago Industrial music they
inspired. Their noisy weirdo rock was more jarring than all the Sonic Youth
records played at the same time. This hour and a quarter of mesmerizing magic
casts sonic spells that have only become more potent after festering in shadows
for decades. Difficult music should not be this effortless to enjoy! So if Chrome was the future decades ago, what does that make Creed's new Chrome record (which Edge does not play on, due to his death nearly 20 years ago, though he does contribute 13 well-chosen words that serve as the sole lyrics of the brilliant anthem "Big Brats")? The crunching, crushing guitar-fueled journey through hyperspace is post-futuristic. It also manages to be savage, funny, beautiful, and wildly weird. Coupled together, these two releases contain an entire (twisted) universe of strange super-powered sounds.

(Cleopatra) These four compilations highlight what the
Cleopatra label does best. My original impression of the label was that it was
a dark wave version of CMC, the 90s metal "heritage" label, that put
out new material by hard rock stars of the past. But Cleopatra has done a lot
more than give goth legends another chance in the studio. They have established
themselves as a label committed to satisfying fans and artists of classic acts with
quality reissues, new albums with great production values (recording, design,
and packaging), and tribute albums that may be corny cash-ins (as all tribute
albums are) yet still reflect that everyone involved is truly a fan, record
collector, and geek excited to get legends and young talents together, even if
it is to record a goth tribute to Smashing Pumpkins tribute, or a metal Michael
Jackson tribute. Seventies British punk bands, 80s hip hop acts, garage rock
revivalists, and Sunset Strip glamsters have all found a supportive home on
Cleopatra (as well as some new acts), so even when an artist I'm not that
interested in gets the Cleo bump, I'm still glad to see them get the respect of
a nice looking album. In many ways their Jack White tribute represents the
ultimate expression of a music fan run label, as putting aside the commercial
tribute album angle, this was a chance to get artists from the 1950s into the
studio again, and give them some glory and love while they are still with us.
The magnificent Wanda Jackson is the ringer (the biggest name and a name
associated with White already) but all the names involved are welcome, as
hearing Sonny Burgess, Johnny Powers, Gary "U.S. Bonds, Johnny Cash
drummer W.S. Holland, jump blues honker Big Jay McNeely (behind Nik Turner!)
and Bobby Vee making well-produced, 21st Century recordings is a thrill. That
the album also features rockabilly/punk revivalists/legends like Robert Gordon,
Rosie Flores, Los Straitjackets, and Walter Lure (making some nice
guitar sounds) is all the better, and what really makes this more than novelty
is the fact that is proves White's compositions aren't just about his style,
idiosyncrasies and recording techniques. They really hold up to a bunch of
different styles, and Vee's sweet little country take on "We're Going to
Be Friends" and Cyril Neville's wonderful vocal on "You Don't Know
What Love Is" are just great recordings they should have made even without
this concept project.

I know that the Doors songs are brilliantly crafted
pop, but I find Jim Morrison insufferable and turn off oldies radio when his
voice fills the airwaves. So the Cleopatra tributes are actually serving up improved songs in my opinion. On the psyche album Elephant Stone redeems “L.A. Woman,” The Psychic
Ills do an extremely reverent cover of “Love Me Two Times," and Dark Horses does a trippy, minimalist, drone take on
“Hello, I Love You” that is still pleasantly ringing in my head. Other
highlights include Clinic’s futuristic take on “Touch Me,” and the Raveonettes
dreamy “The End.” Sure, doing a psych tribute to a band many consider a psych
band (not I, but many) ain’t daring, but I dug this. The classic rck tribute is more bombastic, almost a broadway rock opera jukebox musical, arranging the hits into suite of power riff, wailing, pummeling vehicles for an army of talent including Rundgren, Edgar Winter, Skunk Baxter, Mark Farner, Steve Cropper, Pat travers, David Johansen (!), Rick Wakeman and dozens more. It's mighty, but still for Doors diehards only.

Much better is Cleopatra's Christmas compilation, which unlike their
metal, pop, and rock tribute albums which often feature older stars (Wakeman, Rod Argent) and gifted but historically hinky "members" of
classic bands (Bumblefoot, Bruce Kulick), this (like the psyche Doors tribute)
features younger and fresher (and some timeless) acts that quite frankly don't
seem that hung up on defining what "psych" means. There's nice sounds
from Sons of Hippies, a pretty straight up psyche act, but awesomely this album
culminates with an Iggy Pop "White Christmas," which is certainly
mind blowing but to particularly psychedelic. Impressively this album
draws upon the talents of Quintron and Pussycat (two killer tunes), stoner
superheroes Dead Meadow, sweet swedes the Movements, and one of the better
Fuzztones tracks I've heard in a while. By not making the bands conform to
psyche cliches or make novelty tracks (and being so open minded that a cover of
"Time of the Season" counts as an Christmas cut) this album will not
only hold up for many X-mases to come, but can be spun safely in May or
October.

Thursday, June 19, 2014

(Stand Up!) Eddie Pepitone is known as a comic's comic, the comedian that other comedians worship, and hearing this set it's easy to hear why, but also not impossible to understand why this doesn't translate into mainstream success. The rhythm, phrasing, and discordant melody he utilizes to deliver gripes, rants, and ugly epiphanies is something any comic would aspire to. His actual gritty, seasoned, marvelously distinctive voice is something any comic would be jealous of. But while I can certainly appreciate the gruffly sensitive soul revealed as Eddie reads his tweets and rails against billboards and Yelp and jalepeno poppers, it sometimes seems like his material is rarely as hilarious as his incredible delivery promises which could underwhelm some laymen. But if you listen to Eddie the way you listen to a jazz soloist and just dig a master blowing on his instrument (so to speak) it's hard not to appreciate the artistry here.

(Stand Up!) Cy has the confindent, borderline smarmy delivery of Anthony Jeselnik, but instead of making jokes about actual molestation victims he just jokes about fooling people into thinking he's molesting his niece and nephew. Maybe one or two times too many. That said, I sure laughed alot at this well-honed set, which is a little tough on the "white trash" contingent, but pretty damn funny in being so. And his bit about announcing a middle school girl's basketball is a pretty classic comedy album-type routine, approaching Bob Newhart territory...except for the ridiculing little girls part. Which is pretty much all of it.

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

(Stand Up!) There's a lot of different ways to be a very entertaining drug-centric comic. You can be a dumb stoner like Cheech and/or Chong, a genius, but spacy, stoner like Mitch Hedberg, or you can go a route that has always really impressed me, where you recall detailed, honest, outrageous true life tales of drug-fueled debauchery that find humor in the dangerous depths of depravity, revealing personal lows in ways that serve as confessionals and warnings. Artie Lange was so good at doing this on Howard Stern that sometimes the host would ignore his in-studio guests just to cajole Lange to repeat one of his favorite misadventures. On Geoff Tate's wonderful new album he introduces a fine alternative to the latter. He tells tales of experimenting with crack, challenging acid trips, and filing drug tests with wit, charm, intelligence and a fine sense of comedic rhythm, but with absolutely so shame, regret, or for the most part, consequences. His stories are genuinely funny, seem relatively honest, and are apology free. As he says on the album, having AIDS is terrible but getting AIDS is great, because what could be better than sex or drugs? If you answered "rock 'n' roll," you may be looking for the Queensryhche lead singer Geoff Tate, who is way less funny.

Sunday, June 15, 2014

(Yep Roc) The third inning of baseball-themed rock ‘n’
roll from this all baseball all the time all-star side project is what you
would call, in baseball parlance, a quality start. What’s special about these
songs is that they aren’t just baseball themed, they are hard wired for the
kind of Baseball Almanac,
Sabremetrics, emotional-weight-of-your-dad-having-a-catch-with-you craziness
that leads to baseball fans embracing historic and mathematic and esoteric
specificity. But because it’s pop music, anyone could still dig it! The Lenny
Dykstra song is a perfect example, as it seemingly contains way to much ultra
specific information about what teams he played for, and his best seasons, and
his side businesses, and his baseball talents, and his failed comeback, and his
prison activities, yet it’s so catchy, and the chorus hook is so genuinely good
(“I lived in a mansion, I lived in a car/You got to fly high to fall this far)
that this is absolutely a functional pop song that everyone should groove on.
And they are willing to take risks, thematically if not musically: they have a
shockingly sympathetic song about the steroid-abusing A-Rod tempting fate by
wearing unlucky number 13. And though they are sonic crowd pleasers, these
aren’t musically simple songs: the tune about the day Pasqual Perez earned the
nickname “perimeter” by being late because he couldn’t find the exit to the
park manages to be bouncy, yet simultaneously somber. And there is a
magnificent chord change in their ode to Larry Yount (whose Major League career
ended before it began when he was injured warming up for what would have been
his big league debut), to invoke their subject’s mixed sense of pride and jealousy
he feels at a family gathering as his kids beg their Uncle Robin for glory day
stories. I guess the main point is that baseball is great and everyone who loves
baseball should understand that and love this, for as The Baseball Project
explain musically, even Steve Howe, Sammy Sosa, Ty Cobb, the 1919 Black Sox,
and John Rocker deserve love despite their personal and professional shortcomings,
for one important reason, sung with hope and reverence: “They played baseball.”

(Esoteric/Cherry Red) One kind of art rocker meets another and
the results are arty, but not particularly “out there,” so to speak. The duo one
might call Van der Beefheart Generator makes moody, sometimes spacey, sometimes
gloomy, spare harmonic minimalist folk ballads. Even the bounciest ‘rocker’ on
the album (the fingerpickin’ “This
Is Showbiz”) are still pretty delicate, and somehow the noisy feedback track
(“Means to an End”) is quiet and precious. Maybe this is not Other Wolrd-ly,
but it’s all pretty exquisite.

(whitemurder.com) This might be my favorite rock band now, as their take
on punk, garage, and X-esque weirdo pop is so hard to compartmentalize or
predict, yet has the best visceral qualities of whatever kind of aggressive
underground music you (or as least I) dig. I l-o-v-e-d their singles, but this
LP takes it to another level, plus there’s baby eating in the lyrics. My other
favorite band, by the way, is White Mystery, and I really like Jack White’s
record store. So basically, I’m really starting to recognize that there’s
something special about White power. Quote me on that!

(Stand Up) As this album reveals
itself/introduces us to Adam, there are some things that might seem like warning
flags. The emcee mispronounces his name. The amount of office day job jokes
calls into question how much road/comedy experience he might have under his
belt. And it is mentioned, and made clear, that this album is being recorded at
a sci fi convention. But you know what? Fuck flags! This humanoid kills it! The
most wickedly devious April Fools-related gag is recounted, African genocide is
mined into comedy gold, and financial debt-based fucking is broken down to its
saddest subparticles. Quesnell clearly watched a lot of cable in the 80s and
90s growing up, and science shows, nature shows, and after school specials may
not have educated and guided him as well as HBO and Discovery Channel’s
consultants may have hoped, but they sure made him a sharp, funny,
self-depreciaiting (yet confident) comic. Yay cable! And boo Mr. Emcee who also
ends the album by thanking Adam Quedell!

(Stand Up! Records) Now that 1-900 numbers are no longer a cash cow I feel I can break a promise to my friend and reveal his brilliant, never realized business idea: a 900 number you call up when you're high to get small, daily doses of the humor that seems way funnier when you're way wasted. Part of what this was predicated on was that such humor would be easier to generate because high comedy patrons are fairly predictable and less critical. Basically, you don't need to bring your A-game. Which, makes this release somewhat unpromising. However, that unpromise went unfulfilled, as this is more than half great, which is a way higher (get it?) percentage than my friend would have went for. This is partially achieved with a ringer: non-stoner Keith Lowell Jensen just does his top notch non-weed related set to warm up the crowd. Sure, there's poop eating and old lady fucking jokes, but KLJ goes light on the weed. Jasper Redd delivers a not necessarily weed based set, but filled with the kind of laid back, odd logic, strange punchline stuff that is gold to the stoned. He even tackles race, but in ways stoners will dig (his refusal to revisit slave days extends to not even eating cotton candy...cotton candy! It's funny, and delicious! And racist? Huh, what were we talking about?). Dan Gabriel completely caters to the crowd, but not with low grade stuff. His bit about Michael Phelps bogarting the bud with his super lungs kills! The closer is Ngaio Bealum who doesn't just talk about weed. He talks about weed and sex. Weed and history. Weed and TV. Weed and parenting. Weed and weed. So mostly weed, but with enough cleverness and mischief to make it appealing to a non-stoned listener. But balls out hilarious if you're fucked up!

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Although the sole political number on this release is a hardcore sex tune about lusting after Joe Biden (rhymes with "legs widen" and "slide in"), these Sweetloins of the Rodeo have a lot in common with their musical forebearers Mark Russell and the Capitol Steps. Mainly, that their clever, wordy ditties are profoundly unfunny. That said, David Allan Coe's porno country record is super unfunny as well, but at least that one's so clumsy and crazy and bizarre it's interesting. This is just dirty songs with rhythms that ruin the timing of the jokes and lengthy vocabulary SAT lyrics that ruin the phrasing of the songs (it's a funny idea to say 'vas deferens' in a lyric, but not an actual funny practice). I suppose there's also the stand up/improv element of leaving in lengthy in-studio charter, but that only takes them to 'almost funny.' Which is an improvement. All that said, there are so many people that love country and so many people that love hardcore boning descriptions that if the overlapping area of a venn diagram coupling these two demographics was a gaping vagina you could easily fit every boner in Texas in there. So they have a potential audience!

Monday, June 9, 2014

(Gloryhole) The cassette is
not the ideal format for comps, because you’re never sure who you’re hearing,
but I think The Bloody Mess, Nate Hammond, and Skin Conditions are three of the most
raw-ly awesome bands out there. Or maybe the bands before or after them are.

(Stand Up) Despite the title this was not recorded in Europe,
but rather in America by a guy living in Europe because his wife is in the
military and he needs the health insurance. Yet the title is fitting as the
smart, unintentionally worldly Washburn really does take us on an international
journey of laughter, reporting trash and toilet truths from across the Continent,
and more impressively, making viable, funny stand up jokes that express a
working knowledge of global history, imperialism, and (to some degree)
political science. However, that the naughty Mormon (who still can’t help but
apologize instantly after crossing the line with child molesting or Holocaust
material) is clever enough to open with poop jokes and close with dick jokes
shows that in the world of comedy, one must never forget that worldliness truly
begins and ends in your pants.

(Stand Up!) The album title derives from Tole’s desire to be the
Slayer of Comedy (as opposed to Dane Cook being a slayer of comedy – rim shot!). While that’s a pretty lofty
goal, I must say that there was this one joke about a well-utilized masturbation
tube sock that made me cringe in a manner comparable in brutality to what I felt
the first time I heard “Angel of Death.” Perhaps “Reign in Spooge” may have
been a more fitting title.

(Stand Up!) It is probably unwise to make a
statement as bold as my forthcoming one on the basis of only hearing two comedy
albums, but as a child who coveted Redd Foxx and Steve Martin vinyl above
anything I saw on TV or in person, the fact that I have never seen a live set,
a TV clip, or even a Youtube video of Jackie Kashian doesn’t bring me pause in
saying I think she is my favorite stand up comic working these days. Her albums
are so enchanting, smart, and ridiculously funny that she wins my imaginary
comedy derby. The fact that her cadence sounds like a dated,
stand-in-front-of-a-brick-wall 80s comic only makes her genuine originality all
the more impressive. Kashian earnestly talks about her pleasant marriage, her
Midwestern family and values, her lifelong love of books, and plenty of other
seemingly edgeless topics and manages to reveal angles where the razor sharp
edges genuinely draw laugh-blood. And she’s by no means on track for the
Christian comedy circuit – there’s a bit about shaved pussy cunnilingus on her
new record that’s so ridiculously clever it might win joke of the year. She may
not have the absurdist or nasty tone to mine for Comedy Central or sitcom riches,
but I hope the biz treats her right because this is pure gold!

(Gubbeyrecords.net) That’s a pretty good name! Not the best singing,
but a good name. Some decent hooks, too. Though not as hooky as the name. Just
looked it up online and the greatest wrestler ever at Penn State had that as
his actual name, so maybe this Louisville power pop singer-songwriter got lucky
with a real, live family sobriquet. Or maybe his dad wrestled at Penn State in
the 70s, but Andy, Jr was a worse performing name.

(Ginavillalobos.com) Villalobos is a great rock singer, her gritty,
soulful voice sounding like it’s battled through the rock ‘n’ roll trenches,
despite the music not so much rocking, unless you count rocking your emotional
world. Still that voice, more Bonnie Tyler than Sheryl Crow, but Crow-esque
enough to imagine her getting really big, sells these lush driving ballads like
a powerhouse bar rocker.